The Friends of Nordonia political action committee will hold an organizational meeting on Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Nordonia High School, 8006 South Bedford Road. The Nordonia Hills school district has put a 6.5 mill operating levy on the May 3 ballot.

Britain's Royal Society academy of science has issued a report endorsing the emerging field of educational neuroscience, according to Reuters.

"Every day we are discovering more and more about how the brain works and if this information can help us to learn more effectively or hone the skills of the workforce, then we should be using it," said Uta Frith, head of a working group at Britain's Royal Society academy of science, which published a report on neuroscience and education.

The Stinson Elementary School third-grader returned to the classroom for the first time since being diagnosed with inoperable brain and spinal cancer last fall. At the time, doctors gave the Canal Fulton boy only several weeks to live. However, Ryan's condition has stabilized in recent weeks, according to Stinson Principal Lori Mariani.

This one fell between the cracks in the newsroom, but on Feb. 7, Copley-Fairlawn got a new board member:

The Copley-Fairlawn school board has appointed Fairlawn attorney Richard V. Levin to replace Charles Dressler, who resigned in January for personal reasons. Dressler's 4-year term would have expired in 2013, but Levin will have to be elected in November to keep his seat. Levin previously served on the board from January 1986 through the end of 1997 and again from January 2000 through the end of December 2003.

Education Week has the rundown on the brewing budget fight over federal education spending.

Approval would set up a fiscal face-off in the Democratic-controlled Senate. And, should a bill with severe cuts make it through that chamber, President Obama has pledged to veto it. The current temporary measure expires March 4, and failure to reach agreement on a new one could mean the first federal government shutdown in more than a decade.

School Choice Ohio reports that the legislature will consider expansion of Ohio's limited voucher program:

Rep. Huffman's proposal would combine the Cleveland and EdChoice Scholarship into a new statewide scholarship. Under Huffman's plan, current scholarship students would continue to be eligible and current scholarship caps would be eliminated.

The president's education chief, Arne Duncan, is meeting with school administrators and teachers' union officials in Denver this week (read Duncan's speech here). Akron superintendent David James and Akron Education Association president Jeff Moats are among the attendees. Coventry's superintendent Russell Chaboudy, board president Tina Gable and union president Joanne English also are in Denver. Ohio sent officials from 13 districts from around the state. The event was by invitation only and districts had to be participating in President Obama's Race to the Top school reform program.

FEASTERVILLE, Pa.: A high school English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was suspended for a profanity-laced blog in which she called her young charges "disengaged, lazy whiners" is driving a sensation by daring to ask: Why are today's students unmotivated and what's wrong with calling them out?

The Hechinger Report, Education Writers Association and 30 newspapers across the country (including the Columbus Dispatch and the Plain Dealer) have dug deep into federal education stimulus spending and have a comprehensive report here. (Full disclosure, I have benefitted from training at EWA and the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media.)

Also, see this post by Kevin Drumm at Mother Jones about the myth that America once led the world in performance on international math and science tests, but has since fallen behind.

Officials with Akron Public Schools unveiled the first set of renderings and floor plans for a new King elementary school Monday. We published an artist's rendering of what the school would like from Memorial Parkway in today's print edition, but I can't find it online. I'll try to dig it up and post it here.

My Saturday story on the Williams-Bolar case discussed why her case wasn't resolved at the state level. Here's some more information about that process than I had room for in the story.

A single sentence in the Ohio Revised Code language on school residency explains that the superintendent of public instruction resolves disagreements. Here's the relevant ORC section. You have to scroll down almost to the bottom to get to Section K.

New research into the education of lab rats shows dramatic structural changes in the specific network of neurons involved in the learning, according to a study reported in ScienceDaily. The lab rats aren't learning algebra, they're learning how to snag food, but this research shows specifically how their brains change when they learn.

The finding, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Mark H. Tuszynski, MD, PhD, professor of neurosciences and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, underscores the brain's remarkable ability to physically change as it learns (not just in rats, but presumably in humans too), but also reveals that the effect is surprisingly restricted to the network of neurons actually involved in the learning.

The Columbus Dispatch reports today that the state is releasing local districts from the requirement to offer free all-day kindergarten. Many districts were getting waivers to postpone implementing this requirement anyway, but now it's official in an email from the state superintendent to local districts.

With the writing on the wall, Delisle told local school districts in an e-mail today that they do not have to comply with any requirement that costs money, and there essentially is just one: offering tuition-free, all-day kindergarten starting next fall.